Naruto:Whole
by The real SpamSite
Summary: AU. Naruto's repressed dark memories have created a split personality within him. After having said personality merge with his original one, a new, mistrusting Naruto emerges and focuses on becoming the strongest he could be. Just in case he needs to run away from Konoha. Story starts after the forming of team 7. The series of events will not follow the original story.
1. Let's fix up that noggin of your's

An: In the cannon Naruto, Naruto himself had a split personality that amounted to nothing. Well, everyone kind of did, but in this fic, it is the reason and answer to his stupidity. Any psychological treatment methods in this fanfic have been pulled out of my ass and I hope none of you take them seriously.

Also, I do not own Naruto, etc.

Experienced T&amp;I members from Konoha are well aware of how many ways the human mind has to defend itself from unpleasant experiences. They are also familiar with split personalities that sometimes emerge after a certain limit was exceeded.

Since the Uchiha massacre, special psyhological evaluations were being performed randomly on all active ninja. It is a preventive measure that has already reduced the number of missing nins from konoha by almost half. After Naruto managed to fatally injure the traitor Mizuki, more than a few people were interrested in his state of mind. As soon as Kakashi reported that he passed his team(making Naruto an active ninja), Iroh Yamanaka was assigned to evaluate Konoha's resident Jinchuuriki.

Iroh was an older Yamanaka, just several years younger than the third Hokage. He was balding with a crown of gray hair left, and a large stomach that he got in his old age and forced retirement. His artificial right leg was what forced him into retirement from active shinobi duty. This did not mean that he was usless, no, he endeavoured to do everything he could in order to leave more time to the able bodied ninja. Being a Yamanaka, this included not only teaching the mind arts, but preforming them outside the field.

The old patriot was wary of entering the mind of a jinchuuriki. No Yamanaka in recorded history has attempted to do such a thing. Sarutobi Hiruzen had assure him that the seal stood firm, and that he would not come in contact with the Kyuubi inside the child.

He and the Hokage waited for the boy to come to his evaluations in one of the T&amp;I buildings in Konoha. The boy was brought in by Umino Iruka, the scarred chunnin that Naruto trusted. 'A much better idea than having me bring him in with the boy facing a traitor recently, wouldn't want him nervous and uncooperative for this'. After an unnecesarry amount of nonsene, and several annoying exclamations of "Believe it" they finally convinced him to shut up and relax so that Iroh could get to work.

Once he had acess to Naruto's mind, Iroh immediatelly noticed he was not in an average head. Normal mindscapes have a representation of the mind in the form of a giant brain and some fuzzy surroundings. Even mindscapes with defences against interrogative techniques have only barriers, traps and possible self destruction mechanisms in addition to the usual. Naruto has a simplistic sewer depicting his mind. No brain in sight in it. Some would say that explains the kid's rumored idiocy, but Iroh was too wary of the Kyuubi to joke around.

The sewer consisted of a single hallway in front of him, and a obvious exit behind him. The water that reached to his ankles was a transparent liquid that had no noticable smell temperature or density. Also water walking was not possible on it. It probably represented something, but as it was not a threat, it was not a priority to him either. There was a pair of pipes running allong the upper left of the hallway and he could see clearly despite no obvious source of light. That part at least was common in mindscapes. Standing there was useless, so he started going deeper into Naruto's mind.

After just a little while, the hallway started branching into rooms of various size. Iroh took a careful step into these rooms, only to find that they were The replacement for scrolls sticking out of the central brain in most mindscapes. The rooms contained various memories and experiences and Iroh ignored most of them after just a glance. Despite ignoring most of them, he couldn't forget them so easily and he started feeling sorry for the boy. There weren't too many horrible memories(most of them being just unpleasant), but there was an obivous absence of good ones to offset the mind numbing suffering so many unpleasant experiences caused. Iroh's patriotism took a heavy blow that day.

As he progressed, he could tell that the water-like liquid he was wading through was starting to get a current. It was flowing against him. He later found the source in a room that was warded off with a paper wall that was riddled with holes. The water was shooting through those holes and filling the hallway, flowing away in both directions from the barrier. The paper was not ripped in any place, instead the holes were deliberately added in it. It took no genius to figure out what was on the other side, so he decided not to touch this.

Much later,Iroh had arrived at the end of the hallway looking at a barricaded doorway. To an experienced Yamanaka like himself, the barricades were simple to remove, and he entered the last room in Naruto's mind. Unlike the others before it, this one was large and unlit, mostly covered in shadows. In the center of the room stood another Naruto tied to the floor with chains in a kneeling position. He appeared to look just like the normal Naruto, but his eyes were pupilless red surrounded by black instead of white.

There was hatred in those eyes, hatred and fury that Naruto obviously locked away from the world. Iroh immediately fled his mind to report this to the Hokage.

Next morning in the Hokage's office...

"Hokage-sama, as you can see in my report, Naruto is not well." Iroh said "This problem has nothing to do with Mizuki's betrayal or death. It started sometime during his early childhood. Naruto has for years now been repressing memories to such a degree that he has created a split personality disorder. It has luckily not shown itself yet or people would have assumed it was work of the fox, but that is no guarantee it will remain repressed. Nor is such a course of action healthy."

Sarutobi Hiruzen grew visibly more depressed as Iroh expleined the degree of abandonment, isolation, beatings and a number of other incidents that gave birth to 'Dark Naruto'. According to Iroh the reason Naruto managed to learn the Kage Bunshin (shadow clone) was because both sides of him agreed on it, and cooperated. This implied that Naruto's development was stunted not only through active sabotague that Iroh discovered while going through Naruto's memories ('I will have their hides for this' Sarutobi thought), but also due to Naruto being at war with himself.

"To conclude Hokage-sama" Iroh said "A split personality in a shinobi is a well documented liability that can surface unpredictably. Add the Bijuu(tailed beast) into this and nothing good can come of it." ~inhale~ "He must be treated"

Sarutobi rubbed his weary eyes "What do you think will happen to him Iroh-san?"

"He will become whole, and it will be possible for him to begin healing... As to his personality... it will most likley change a great deal."

"How long will the treatment take?"

Iroh leaned back, staring at the celling and rubbing his chin in thought "Well, I'd estimate that if he cooperates, and this is something you should convince him to do, it can be done in under two weeks. However, if he resists, it take over a year."

"Very well Iroh-san, I will talk to Naruto later today. Am I correct in assuming that you will be the one to merge the personalities?"

"I am qualified for the job Hokage-sama, and it's not like I have something better to do with my time."

"Very well, I shall send for you later then. Thank you Iroh-san."

Iroh left behind a pensive Sarutobi wondering how to best break the news to Naruto.

Naruto was scared and excited at the same time. The old man had told him he would have to go through this therapy thingy to take even D rank missions. Teme (bastard) Sasuke was angry at him for slowing him down as Kakashi-sensei refused to take on anything team related without the whole team there for it. Team seven was on hold because of this, and Sakura-chan naturally took teme's side in this.

He was scared because the old man said this would change him a bit, but also that not going through with it could end up killing him or someone he worked with. The exciting part was that he would be able to learn cool new jutsu(techniques) faster. Or something along those lines. The old man's explanation was too long to listen to.

He walked into the same room his examination was held at. It had several new books and scrolls, but other than that nothing changed. Fat, old Yamanaka Iroh was even in the same place and position.

"Good day Naruto-kun. To begin this therapy you will need to meditate deeply. Therefore we will be practicing meditation to start. If you manage to go deeply enough into yourself, you will appear in your mindscape. For now, I want to teach you to travel to and from your mindscape back here freely. Do not do anything there as it is not without danger. You can leave the same way you enter. Understood?"

"Uh... could you go over it one more time?" Naruto asked scratching his head.

It took several hours for Naruto to stop fidgeting enough to enter the dank sewers of his mind, and by the time he got out Iroh called it a day. Tomorow Naruto's questions, that multiplied as he slept on it, were answered. "Why is my mind a sewer?" was answered with "I'm not so sure it's a sewer, but I assume that it is as dark as it is due to the difficult life you've had so far. Also the simplicity of the place reflects upon your straightforward personality." That particular disingenuous assertion was greatly disturbing to Naruto and he proceeded to argue about it for a while. "What about the water?" was answered with "I believe it is the representation of your excess uncontrolled chakra. As to why I believe that, well... I've seen it's source in where I assume your prisoner remains locked away. Stay the hell away from there. That bit has nothing to do with what we are trying to accomplish."

After three days of meditation training Iroh deemed Naruto advanced enough to continue the therapy.

"Naruto-san, now I would like you to go to your mindscape, and walk toward it's end. Ignore the side rooms for now and follow the main path to where I saw the other you. If you can, try to talk to him, understand why he exists and will he cooperate? Oh, and if it seems like you are going to get into a fight, leave immediately."

Naruto followed Iroh's instructions and started exploring his mind for the first time. It took a lot of self control on his part to ignore the side rooms of his mind. He was burning with curiosity and promised himself to poke his head in them later. When he finally came to the corridor's end, the room beyond it had his full attention. It was much more roomy than the corridor, but because it was so dark, he couldn't tell how big it was, nor what it had inside.

Out of the shadows walked another Naruto with red eyes and black pupils being the only visible difference. He yelled at light Naruto. He shouted at him how he was saddled with the worst memories and experiences that light Naruto was repressing and ignoring. He yelled at him because he was imprisoned here, he yelled at him because he wanted out for his revenge. Being that that was what light Naruto came here to do (get him out of there that is) he said ok, and began to merge being sure that he could help his darker part recover and "see the light". When they started merging, Naruto fell into a coma like unconsciousness.

***Two days later in the Hokage's office***

Sarutobi could already see big changes in the boy. He was quiet now and he no longer smiled as much, his smiles had turned mostly into smirks. Naruto was still a bundle of energy, but now that energy was mostly shown by him being being jumpy and nervous around people, seeming to distrust almost everyone. He was also able to focus much better, shrugging off what would have easily distracted him just several days ago.

"Well, Naruto" Sarutobi began "Iroh told me that the treatment was a success, and that there are no nasty surprises left over. How do you feel now?" The boy looked at him before getting a lost in thought kind of expression, actually thinking about his answer for once.

"I guess that I'm doing fine jiji, but everything is so strange to me now."

Sarutobi took his time lighting his pipe to give himself time to think as he usually did (it was why he started smoking really, damn politics) before exhaling smoke and refocusing on Naruto.

"Different how Naruto?"

"Well...chakra for example." Naruto resolutely nodded as if agreeing with himself before continuing "Why does it do the things it does? Crossing my fingers, molding and expelling it to make a copy of me seems really weird when you think about it. I just never stopped to think about it. All of it was just 'cool' to me."

Sarutobi smiled a bit and said "That jutsu is considered high ranked for a reason Naruto. The fact is that you had to master sealless bunshin chakra flow to use the kage bunshin, and I believe this was easier because of your earlier efforts at learning the standard bunshin to pass the genin exams, add the final hand symbol and expel a much larger amount of chakra through it than you would for the standard bunshin to where you wish your clones to appear. I could go more into the theoretical aspect of how the handsign used is a merging of two handsigns used to split and copy simultaneously, or I could tell you about the spiritual and physical aspects of chakra used in this jutsu... but I believe that you would need most of the information available in scrolls and books in the library about the basics of such things before what I have to say about it would make any kind of sense to you."

Naruto took a minute to let that all sink in before saying "Ok, I should probably raid the library..."

"Please don't raid the library Naruto-kun." Sarutobi quickly interjected slightly pale at the thought. "Also, you will find the information in the shinobi archives, not the public library."

"...but let me just ask a few more questions."

"Of course. Ask away."

"Why are hand-seals called 'seals' in the first place?"

"Because of their origin Naruto-kun. You see, before hand-seals existed as they do today, people could only control their chakra directly. That made it very specific in use, meaning one person could use chakra for five to ten things maximum. Average chakra users that is. Then one day someone experimenting with the use of chakra managed to infuse his writing with it. Since he needed to seal his chakra into the writings for it to do anything, this method was named seals. He did manage to do some interesting things with it before blowing himself up, so the practice was continued after him by his relatives, albeit more carefully.

This was the birth of fuinjutsu. Eventually someone else managed to create a representation of a simple written seal with his hands and mould chakra into them, thereby making the first hand-seal. This of course started a new revolution in chakra usage when people figured out how to string hand seals one after the other, but that is a story unto itself. One you can find in the public library. Anyway I hope I cleared up your confusion with this."

He stopped talking to inhale the smoke from his pipe before it could extinguish itself and looked out the window into the distance before continuing.

"Basically Naruto, There are three ways of controlling chakra. Direct manipulation where you feel the chakra and manipulate it with your will, written seals that are somewhat of a unstable, dangerous and precise science, and hand-seals that are somewhere in between the other two. All are useful tools, but the greatest is the ability to combine them."

"Combining them?"

"Yes, to combine them, one must master at least one of the ways to use chakra. Iryojutsu (medical techniques) is a good example of this. It emphasizes direct manipulation in combination with handseals to create a new form of chakra that directly manipulates some part of the human body, like bones, blood and blood vessels, skin, organs and so on. The fourth was infamous for his ability to combine fuuinjutsu with either of the other two forms of chakra control with devastating precision and speed. Another example would be summoning jutsu and there are others too, but I see that I am loosing your concentration."

"Ha,ha ... sorry jiji" Naruto said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head "It's a lot to take in"

Sarutobi smiled "It's not a problem Naruto, I get long winded sometimes when teaching."

"So, is Kakashi-sensei going to teach me this?"

"Heavens, no! He may have been called a genius, but even he only mastered hand-seals, and does not have the necessary knowledge or skill to combine it with the other two. For reasons that are private to him, he has lost most of his motivation to improve his skills some years ago... Kakashi may help you on your way, but it is up to you to master something or not. Not to mention the many non chakra tools that shinobi use. Kakashi will help you get used to shinobi service in the village, and offer you guidance, but a great deal of training is optional to the shinobi senseis. And if I know Kakashi at all, that means he will offer you general guidance, and let you figure out the rest on your own."

"Got it jiji, I guess that I am supposed to learn all of this extra stuff from the shinobi archives, right?"

"Yes, now that you are a genin, a portion of the archives is open to you."

The two talked late into the night and Sarutobi concluded their conversation saying "Now that you are better, I will tell Kakashi to reactivate team 7. You should expect him to visit tommorow."

*** The next day ***

Naruto was begrudginly allowed into the archives after being threatened with castration if he so much as considers pulling a prank there. The librarian was a middle aged man that lost an arm in combat and did not want to retire yet, so he was still pretty handy with a knife. Naruto took the threat seriously, after all, he didn't even think about pulling a prank yet, and he did not want to be banned from here yet.

The archives building had four floors and possibly some in the basement. In Naruto's admittedly limited knowledge it was the only archives building. Also the genin part of the building was limited to the bottom floor, and even then only half of it. That half was twice the size of Naruto's apartment, but it still annoyed him that most of the archives were off limit to him. When he asked the stab-happy librarian about it, he was told with a palpable glee and a face splitting grin that:

"The available information is known everywhere so if some genin were to be captured and interrogated ... no biggie." He decided not to talk to the man anymore after that. Avoiding the man behind his counter that bordered both the main entrance and the doorway to the chunin section, he started exploring the place.

The square room was filled with bookcase rows and a couple of desks and chairs. The many rows of books and scrolls did not give him an idea where to start, so he walked around looking at the different sections.

There was a general history section that looked boring and useless, followed by a slightly less useless small area on known clans in and out of Konoha, then a section on weapons and weapon using styles, some chakra control and a few basic jutsu, the various tools that shinobi use, a large section on fundamental medical jutsu theory, first aid and supplies(where the only person visiting the archives other than him was reading something), basic tactics section, spying and infiltration skills, a obviously untouched code of conduct and laws section, respective taijutsu and genjutsu sections, and a single shelf about fuuinjutsu.

Naruto decided then and there that he was going to get everything he could out of the archives. He was the most familiar with jutsu, so he started reading a book called 'comprehensive handseals' and started reading. He also made and sent a clone to find something useful from the taijutsu section to help him.

The book he was reading had only the basic three, and some camping justu used as examples. The rest of the material was going on about what different handseals do, what some combinations caused, how to calculate the chakra cost of a jutsu based on its hand-seals, etc. It was a useful thing to know, but it would take too long to learn for it to be useful to him now. Then the clone brought a taijutsu scroll, dispelled and completely blew his thoughts off track.

He could remember looking for that scroll, choosing between some taijutsu styles was a guessing game to him, and this scroll promised to be able to help with that. But the fact he could remember it meant...it meant his clones could read and learn in his place. With a wide grin spreading, he made a couple of more clones. One to read the taijutsu scroll, and one to browse the rest of the archives. He himself went to ask the guy if he could borrow the comprehensive handseals book. The book would be a useful guide to experimenting with creating or changing jutsu, just not around stab happy librarians.

"No, no borrowing." the sneering cripple said " You may have not noticed yet, what with you being...simple... but there are no copies of books or scrolls here. You are allowed to order your own copy if you want, but that will cost you around 500 ryo**(AN:the economics in 'Naruto' are completely ridiculous, so I will not bother to be overly accurate with them)**, and you're not allowed to give, lend or sell it to anyone under genin rank."

"Ok, nevermind then" Naruto said. For four of those he could pay rent for a month and have a little bit left over. It would take all his money him to get more than a few books/scrolls from here ... but, getting scrolls of his own and a brush and ink would be under 100 ryo easily. He was planning on learning fuuinjutsu anyway so these could be calligraphy practice. If the librarian did not catch him that is. He would later come in here henge'd as someone else, Choji maybe. He could ask the price of a copy of something to make sure the stabby cripple is not overcharging him.

He put the book back and went to the market to get some fuuinjutsu scrolls. A simple henge was enough to ensure the shopkeepers did not harass him like usual. 'Why didn't I think of this earlier?', and he brought it back to the archives only to be turned away.

"You didn't think you're the first wiseass we had to deal with here did you?" the embodiment of all that is annoying that works at the archives told him. While sneering of course.

He was fuming on his way back to his apartment when he saw Hatake Kakashi leaning next to his door, reading smut. He didn't look up from his book, but he acknowledged his presence by saying "Nice to see you're doing better Naruto. The hokage said to restart team 7, so we're doing just that tomorrow at training grounds 7 in 7. Don't you just love it when these things overlap nicely?" before poofing away into smoke.

Naruto blinked at that, shrugged and moved on. He stashed his new fuuinjutsu supplies, set his morning alarm and made a clone go to the archives to tell the other to clones to release and look for fuuinjutsu instructions that would teach him to make storage seals. With those on the inside of his clothes he could hide his scrolls and brushes. Maybe.

When the clone got to the archives, the other two dispelled themselves and Naruto got their memories. One memory gave him some tips on how to train his taijustsu, but the memory of the other was the real jackpot. Clone #2 had seen a book in the spying skills section about memorizing the contents of various scrolls and maps perfectly. It was the ideal solution to his book/scroll copying problem. It would have been perfect in general if not for the many limitations to the technique. He would have a clone learn it and use it to copy the useful stuff in his apartment, or maybe somewhere else if he could find a secret base of sorts.

The secret base would be better, so he could send some henge'd clones running around Konoha looking for someplace like that. But most likely there would not be a ready made place for him to go to. Luckily, he was used to breaking into places stealthily for his pranks, and the clones could only help.

With that plan ready to be put into action, he went to a unused training ground and made a bunch of clones to help him train in some of the stuff he remembered seeing in the taijutsu scroll. Every now and then, one of the clones would wander off in search of a possible hideout.

Nightfall marked the end of his training for the day. He trudged up to his apartment sweaty and winded but content with the results of the day. The scout clones did not find anything useful, but they were more focused on not being noticed than doing everything possible. There was no need to rush, and ruin possible hideouts by drawing too much attention to them. The clone from the archives dispelled shortly after closing time. Apparently he decided to change his mission once he got the memories about the memorization skill. Clever clone. With that he started learning the skill. All in all a good day. His 'Choji' clone remembered the price being the same, although he was not threatened. Typical. Maybe he should learn about the other genin in Konoha to use them for asking questions.

The fact that his clones got memory from other clones is something he would have to experiment with, but not today. He had quite a big enough headache today.

*** The next day ***

Walking to training ground 7 he saw Sasuke and Sakura already there. Sasuke decided to vent his 'righteous' frustrations on him for 'holding him back' by threatening him not to do it again with vague consequences(or maybe I just didn't listen?). He was also taunting him saying 'dobe' this and 'dobe' that punctuated with the occasional sneer. Sakura made her valuable contribution by unconditionally agreeing with everything he said and looking sternly at Naruto.

If he was honest with himself, yesterday's training and consecutive headaches, no matter how light, made him still sleepy so he listened to them with half an ear and feeling what he suspected was the 'Shikamaru default'. Arguing with them would be worthless as they are not the most open minded of people, so he went with an 'Ok' response before finding a spot in the shade under a tree to sleep some more.

It took Kakashi only two hours to arrive and begin their chores/missions. One weeding mission and one with heavy lifting ended their jobs for the day with a 350 ryo per person salary. As Sakura lived with her family and Sasuke had a massive inheritance, he suspected the pay was only motivating him to not complain about their job/chores. Their grumbling was light but would probably increase in time.

After lunch Kakashi had them doing a team exercise that involved going through an obstacle course blindfolded (how does that even help teamwork?) that they failed magnificently. Because the man had authority over him, and he seemed to have some sort of fixation on teamwork, Naruto decided it would be less of a headache to do as he says unless he is being ridiculous. Because of that, he left early while Kakashi had the other two stay behind for some likely inspirational speech that would make them see things his way. That or punishment by annoyance.

Naruto used the rest of the day to experiment with clones, and visit old man Sarutobi. Apparently the risks and weaknesses of using the shadow clones were lost on the retarded version of him. His experiments showed him that having clones while others pop divides headaches evenly among his clones as well as the chakra and memories. Other than that he did not get any new insights into the technique. Sarutobi told him why it was considered forbidden.

Besides the large chakra drain and possible brain damage from information overload, there existed two main countermeasures against those who use shadow clones in combat. They were both related towards the return of the jutsu. The first inserted potentially poisonous or corrosive chakra into the clone that would on dispelling return it to the original. That would both give away his position and harm or kill the original (because nobody other than Naruto used such numbers, the return chakra would not be spread out amongst any other clones). The other method was to cause sensory overload with genjutsu on the clone that could stun any other clones and the original.

It seemed to Naruto that both of these techniques could be reduced by a shitload of clones, but Sarutobi still urged him to err on the side of caution. As the old saying goes, civilians can be paranoid, ninja can only be prepared.


	2. What a world to live in

I do not own Naruto

An: This story is AU, it will not follow the original's story or time line. Because there will be cursing and possibly gore, I've decided to up the rating to M.

'thoughts'

The following weeks were similar to this day to Naruto. He would meet his team early in the morning because Kakashi alternated his lateness so they could not adjust to his announced time. Naruto suspected there was a point to the man's madness. Probably related to his obsession with teamwork too. In the time they would wait for Kakashi to show up, Naruto trained himself physically. Sasuke and Sakura were ignoring him anyway, and the clones could do other things for him.

Sasuke took the idea of morning training from Naruto after a few days and trained in various shinobi skills while Sakura watched him or took time to read some book or scroll. None of what they did was helping their teamwork.

This was followed by a few D-class chores and finally afternoon teamwork training. Sasuke and Sakura both soon got the clue from Naruto to follow the path of least resistance in this training though not without teeth grinding on his end and blaming Naruto on her end. After a few days, the teamwork training started progressing a little. They got to the point where they were not trying to sabotage Naruto for stress relief. Kakashi's idea of teamwork training included passing random items to each other wile blindfolded and moving though Konoha, or the obstacle course, or some other place, moving in a triangle formation with backs to each other through various terrains, mock fights with Kakashi followed by strategy meetings, planing and trying out combination attacks and defences and finally carrying each other while tree hopping.

All this time Naruto's clones were studying the spying memory technique that was said to be useful in some genjutsu besides it's intended use. That was because you could memorize your surroundings and alter them slightly for your genjutsu without missing out on any details. It was also useful in discovering when you were in a genjutsu. The drawbacks were that it took a great deal of focus, and when studying anything complex like scrolls, reduced situational awareness and generally slowed down a persons thinking speed. When used for learning, it was only useful for memorizing large information dumps like learning the names of body parts for a medic nin, or learning the names of various chemicals,... It had big drawbacks in the fact that this information could only be recalled when specifically focusing on it. That made it useless for things like comprehension and strategy. Practicing it though helped improve Naruto's memorization skills in general.

Around lunch he would send a few clones to scout out potential hideouts, and when nighttime came around he would make a bunch of clones to absorb the memories of others without a headache. It took only a few minutes more anyway. Dispelling one clone was the signal to the ones that were studying to start dispelling once they were alone.

After two weeks, he learned the memory technique well enough to remember several pages perfectly for a few days. This signalled the start of the copying routine where he would copy books and scrolls from the archives. The first thing copied would be the fuuinjutsu section (because it was the smallest) and the immediately useful taijtsu and weapons basics. They just included instructions on how to train for basic strength, speed and/or precision increase. Any more advanced training would have to fit with whatever styles he would use.

He rarely ever met anyone in the crammed archives, and the few people there were not interested in socialising. This made making and dispelling clones in the archives easier. Still, it was a shame clones could not make more clones so that he would not need to go inside himself. Numerous people visiting would also be suspicious, so he didn't even try that.

By the end of the third week, his routine came to an abrupt end in the form of a C-rank mission, to the great relief of his teammates. Their mission was a border patrol along the border with the Land of Rivers.

* * *

***Mission start***

Kakahi POV (point of view)

This C rank mission took the inspiredly named team 7 to a border outpost to swap with some chunin team. The mission was supposed to last for two weeks, but with how slowly they were going, and the frequent breaks Sakura was needing, it would probably feel like that escort mission where his protection target was 89 years old. Good thing he brought most of his icha icha collection in a couple of storage scrolls to alleviate his boredom.

The team knew the basics of strategy and teamwork, but rarely applied it. Sasuke was an arrogant little shit, but at the age of 12 and with his trauma it was perfectly understandable that he would have issues. It just seemed a stupid idea to saddle him with the brat and expect the issues to resolve themselves, or worse, that he would do something about it. He sure as hell was not a psychologist. The best option seemed to be to give the brat over to the Yamanaka. They did wonders with Naruto. Sure, it's a little creepy he's gone from craving attention to completely ignoring almost everyone, but it was still a noticeable improvement. Where he used to argue about every little thing in some form of rivalry with Sasuke, and clumsily suck up to Sakura in some form of brat romance, now he does his shinobi duties with the minimum of fuss.

Unlike the other two that is. Sakura and Sasuke both seemed to need therapy, though of a different kind. Sasuke to deal with his past and superiority and inferiority complexes, and Sakura to face reality. If they could be treated from these glaring issues, they could greatly grow as a team, and as individual ninja. It's a shame that there are so many ninja who completely neglect their mental health. The Hokage should really make some mandatory Yamanaka exams and therapies. It might have saved plenty of people who lose their minds like Orochimaru did. Or at least discover them in time. 'Oh well, better make use of the boring travelling time.'

"Ok everyone, listen up. It is likely that this mission will involve nothing spectacular, and no fighting whatsoever, but if per chance it does, your first reaction after dodging will be to use a flare bomb to alert others where you are, and that you need backup. This will be our standard procedure for any ambushes we find ourselves in while separated.

Sometimes you will need to move in complete silence for various reasons, like sneaking up on someone. Or away from someone. Because communication is vital in a team though, it must not be cut off by the need for silence, so we will be practicing to speak with handsigns. This will also require paying attention to your comrades to be able to see them making the signs. That means you Sakura."

The brat sputtered something he didn't pay attention to and continued talking over her protests. "These are the current handsigns for identifying Konoha ninja" he said and showed them the series of signs. "They change regularly, and you will need to keep up on the newest changes by picking them up at the missions office. Some teams have their own signs, but you guys don't need them for now. Because you are not famous enough, no one will research you to the point of knowing your past, so you can make do with questions. Now, practice those signs for a while and I will show you the standard signs for follow, stay and alert. We will be getting you used to handsign communication on this mission."

By the time we got to the outpost, the three about to be relieved chunin looked relieved enough. They accepted the handsign message without any questions. Probably wanted to go home as soon as possible. Slobs.

The outpost was a camouflaged wooden tower with a cosy and cool basement where the beds were. Right alongside the paperwork desk. I let the brats get used to the outpost and wander around a little bit before gathering them again. "All right, now that we are here, we should decide on our patrol timetable. I will be going with you for the first round so that you can see the route you will be following, but after that you will be going solo. There will always be someone patrolling, and I will be taking the night patrol."

The three quickly decided that Sakura was patrolling in the afternoon and Sasuke in the evening leaving Naruto 'he wasn't paying attention again' with mornings.

Kakashi left a shadow clone at the outpost before taking them along the patrol route. The route was more like a series of checkpoints so that they would not get lost. The actual route could be different every time. He also showed them the traps the previous teams left behind. At one point someone had tried to cross the border illegally and left easily noticeable tracks behind so Kakashi took the chance to show them the tracks made by civilians or lousy ninja when going through the wild. They were supposed to have learned all that at the academy, but it was best to make sure they knew. He knew better than to assume by now. Seeing practical tracks helped them learn better. It was useful knowledge even though they were not a tracking team. Naruto showed a lot of interest in learning how to not leave tracks behind, but that lesson could wait for another time. It wouldn't do for him to start getting away with his pranks too soon. The route's end was marked with a different checkpoint that another border patrol group would reach from the other direction.

All of the checkpoints here were carved out of rocks and filled with various seals used in keeping track of people entering and leaving the fire country. It is just one of the jobs of the barrier teams to keep an eye on these so that Konoha is never caught off guard. He had them fill the checkpoints with small amounts of chakra without explaining why. It wasn't really important for them to know now anyway. Maybe they would even come up with some amusing theories about it.

Kakashi would send clones with them for their patrols for another two days before he trusted them with the job. It was a backwater part of the world where there were very rare instances of combat. Almost all of them happened in wartime. That made it popular for training drills and the like. The chunin that were guarding the border previously were probably being punished with boring duty for some screw up since this was a mostly career genin post. There were occasional civilian attempts of illegal entry for smuggling or whatever, so someone had to stay around.

After the brats were well enough used to the patrol job, he showed them the tree climbing exercise. It was a simple matter of expelling chakra through the tenketsu on ones foot and making it grab the offending surface like the suckers of an octopus. Still they would need to make it a habit like breathing before they could say that they mastered it. Naruto would get the benefit of having more precisely controlling his chakra, Sakura would get to exercise her chakra capacity, and Sasuke would have some benefits of both kinds.

* * *

***Naruto POV***

Their first C-class mission was much busier than the D-class chores. It was obviously in a different calss than the ones he was used to. They started by learning handsigns while traveling 'like we couldn't have used the previous shitty missions for that' and got to work immediately once they got to the outpost that was four days of tree hopping away. Two and a half without Sakura slowing them down.

Naruto had used his memorization technique to remember the handsigns for identifying Konoha ninja, but learned the others the old fashioned way. If he had learned them using the memorization technique, then he would never be able to use them quickly and smoothly regardless of how much he practiced with it. He would always have to concentrate on remembering every specific symbol. That would have made it slow and because of that useless.

Kakashi showed them the routes for patrolling, the traps that they would occasionally have to rearm or fix because wild animals got caught in them. That was apparently their main food source as well. The checkpoint stones that drew a bit of chakra made him curious. Sakura got exhausted after every shift because of those.

Naruto got stuck with the job of getting fresh water while Sasuke was on equipment maintenance and Sakura on cooking. She was pretty good at that. After the first few days of being extremely busy, there was less to do. Kakashi used this chance to show and explain tree walking to them (and it's benefits) and left them to it. When no one was looking, Naruto decided to try leaving training to his clones, and it worked flawlessly. He had tree walking down to a reflex by the end of day one.

Sasuke was suspicious the next day at him. Almost like he suspected a trick of some kind just because he was not even half way up a tree. Sakura was too exhausted to care. Seeing as how he was the only one to notice Sasuke decided he didn't care, or something like that because he stopped staring at him strangely.

Naruto then got the idea that if he can't make/find a hideout in Konoha, one could be useful where nobody looked too hard to find anything. Like near the #1 most uneventful border patrol outpost in the country. If what Kakashi was saying was true.

He would have rather trained in something than waste time looking for possible hideouts, but Kakashi just told him to relax when he can so that he can fully focus on his mission when he has to. Unlikely intruders or not, professional was professional. So to do his job professionally it would only be natural to scout everything possible in the perimeter. A very wide perimeter. He grinned that day for the first time since his therapy. Just like he used to for his pranks.

Decision made, he made a hundred clones per every scouting mission. On the first one, they would just wander everywhere, but the next day he would send them in one direction to scout there without leaving any tracks. According to Kakashi that meant no footprints, no broken branches, no bent grass, no overturned dirt or rocks, no scratches on wood or stone, no scent(but he couldn't check that), no chakra usage residue(ditto), etc... There sure was a lot of ways of tracking someone.

It turned out to be an interesting way of training where one clone would wander off and another would later try to follow his tracks. If he could then they would both dispel to give the next ones a chance. If one clone managed to trick several clones, he would dispel (after a few hours) to show them through his memory where he went. Then more clones would follow the path again trying to see any tracks earlier clones might have missed.

It took Naruto a week before he would learn not to leave any obvious tracks in the wilderness. He would have to look for which non obvious tracks exist and tracks and trails left behind in other environments to fully learn to sneak around well.

Sasuke had used the extra time they had every day to train himself physically with weapons or running and practicing some Uchiha katas with the occasional fireball mixed in. Sakura had used the extra time to try and sneak away from continuing her tree climbing training. She failed. Her exhauted expression at getting caught was hilarious. Kakashi was content with teaching them just more about spotting traps and traps in general and handsigns. By the end of two weeks they could hold limited conversations with handsigns.

Taking the cue from Sasuke, Naruto took to sprinting and turning sharp corners while sprinting. The clones could handle most of the throwing weapons exercise 'except arm strength and flexibility' and long distance running was easy to him because of his ridiculous stamina so he would not get as much benefit from it.

One of his clones had the 'great and absolutely brilliant' idea of using 'toe seals' instead or alongside handseals. 'What the fuck? Why are some clones insane?'

* * *

Three days before they would leave one of his clones found some caves in the nearby hills. The caves were for the most part populated by bears. Bears that killed his clones. Stupid bears. They were the best option he had for making a secret base and Naruto was mulling it over when a messenger eagle came to deliver an emergency summons to Kakashi. The man told them a chunin will be dropping by early tomorrow to give them further instructions. He then disappeared in a blur.

Team 7 managed to stay civil enough with each other to agree to stick with the schedule of scouting. That did not last long.

"I am in charge until the chunin comes here tomorrow." Sasuke said. Sakura nodded enthusiastically and agreed saying something I did not really listen to.

"In charge of what?" I asked

"Baka Naruto!" Sakura stared yelling "In charge of us and the mission of course!" She put her hands on her hips as if that settled something. Or maybe to challenge me into disagreeing. One or the other probably.

I looked at her like she was retarded. "What I meant is-"I say slowly like talking to an idiot child "-with our jobs not changing, what need is there for someone to be in charge. Besides teaching us Kakashi was basically having a vacation."

"In case we get in a fight Naruto." Sasuke patiently explained, or with exasperation maybe. He seemed to think it was obvious going by his expression.

"Right, right." I say "So, oh glorious leader" I'm getting the impression I am getting on both of their nerves. "how should we cover Kakashi's night shift?" That question threw them off till they(Sasuke) decided to stretch everyone's shifts to 8 hour long ones. I could have dealt with the whole thing with my clones, but my teamwork skills just are not on the level where I could care about their comfort. It was only one day anyway.

When the chunin came, it was some 20 something career chunin named Shun Nakano. He did not particularly like me(seeing as he put me in charge of the entire night shift), but other than that was not difficult. Shun bragged a lot about his speedy delivery of messages and packages that made him one of Konoha's go to chunin even in case of emergencies and combat zones. Of course only as far as actually delivering stuff and messages. Seeing as he was not strong, Sasuke lost interest in him within the first minute of knowing him. It took Shun a few hours to notice that. Sakura wanted to follow Sasuke's lead like usual but decided to try and be polite. The man had a higher rank than them.

The man had done missions on this outpost before. I could tell with how he brought rice wine with him filling most of his weapon pouches. He became much more of a braggart when he was drunk (at least a few hours a day). Another noticeable change was that he held little back in his drunk stories. I sent a henge-d Sakura clone to interro...no, I mean ask him how he became chunin and how he became 'so strong'. Through a slurred tale of unnecessary drama I got the following bits of info.

\- Chunin exams are brutal and filled with tricks and overpowered genin. The few genin who actually use stealth and their heads can pass the exams by impressing the proctors without getting to the end of the exams. They don't even have to get far.

\- There are many specializations for chunin, and not even half of them require great strength. They are still invaluable to the village.

\- There are five main elements that chakra can be converted into. Shun Nakano's element was wind and he managed to invent a jutsu with it. It was his pride and joy. Using this jutsu he can lessen his body's weight, and using body strengthening chakra at the same time, he becomes really fast. So fast that he gets a bit of tunnel vision.

\- Body strengthening with chakra is a technique that uses raw chakra going through the body, and into it from your chakra coils to make it stronger and faster. Sending that chakra out of the body can be used as a weak and wasteful shield. It's one of the direct chakra manipulation techniques the old man was going on about when I asked him about chakra. According to Shun it's something you get the hang of by trial and error. Clones it is then.

That was all the useful information I could get out of the guy after three hours of talking to him in two days. He managed to go through his entire stash of wine by then. He was looking strangely at Sakura the next few days for her changes in behavior (at least as far as he could tell) but dismissed it soon enough.

In the meantime I had the clones practice body strengthening and the chakra shield techniques. They were really bad at it at first and kept getting frustrated. Two nights after he started this new training (hideout completely forgotten) one of the frustrated clones made a startling discovery. He could sleep in bosses place. The original would have to sleep far less now. With only the need to rest the body the sleeping time was cut down to a tenth of the usual eight hours. Kyuubi probably helped with that too. His healing is becoming useful in surprising new ways.

With a few clones doing the scouting job, I spent the remaining mission time learning to use both chakra techniques along with physical training with no Kakashi to try and stop me. The man may have been right, but I just don't care right now. Not here in the middle of nowhere. One more thing I noticed was that when the clones used chakra to shield themselves, they returned a lot less chakra. It really is a waste. Expelling it when hitting something made the hit a bit stronger though.

We went back to Konoha when replacements (career genin, older than Shin even) came. We made a report of how nothing happened and went our separate ways.

* * *

In the days it took for Kakashi to come back I went back to my routine again. My clones saw the other two do the same. I managed to have my clones copy most of the taijutsu section and a good part of the weapons one. The librarian does not seem suspicious because I keep changing which henge the clones going in use. They also each pick a subject and stick to it. One of the clones looking for a hideout spied on a green spandex wearing kid named Rock Lee that was focusing in taijutsu, and he seemed fanatic enough to use him to quickly copy that section. So long as the clone kept mumbling about youth or yosh, the librarian kept away. He even seemed a bit nervous. Ha!

For the weapons section I used the appearance of one of his teammates called Tenten. That kunoichi had a focus on everything that could be thrown, and many things that were not meant to be. No one found her reading more about weapons suspicious. I had a Shikamaru clone pop in every now and then to get a scroll to read, which he would choose at 'random' and promptly fall asleep whenever the librarian 'or is it archivist?, Whatever' was nearby. My own likeness was seen in there studying random books which earned the clone some sneers, and I used several older genin whose name I don't know too.

I learned that to be skilled in taijutsu, reflexes were vital. That meant that the moves I would be making should definitely not have problematic things like openings and such. Which in turn meant that before getting them to a reflexive level, I should learn to do them flawlessly. Most of what the clones copied from the archives seemed to be styles that have higher levels of skill. Probably in the chunin and jounin sections. Maybe there were even ANBU sections? Anyway, I had no sure way to know how most of these would develop which made choosing one difficult.

In the end I chose one with a focus on dodging. Humming bird style. After all, using that with the clones is going to make them a lot more useful. Longer lasting too. Unfortunately it required a flexible body and clones couldn't help there. Also just for shits and giggles I started increasing the flexibility of my toes. Hey, a guy's gotta unwind somehow.

As for jutsu, I had copied the comprehensive handseals book and a dozen clones had started experimenting with the basic academy jutsu. Trying that with the kinjutsu (forbidden technique) would be more interesting, but clones cannot make more clones. That would mean I would have to endanger himself. Much better to have the clones mess up and make notes of every useful little detail. They also covered the camping jutsu I can learn. Those included simple katon (fire based) jutsu to start a campfire, one to clear away any possible smoke from the fire and a jutsu to use as a light. There were doton (earth based) jutsu to get rid of 'mostly bury' waste, and a water jutsu to filter drinkable water from any source. Even from the blood of hunted animals. Well, I have yet to try the blood part.

One thing I immediately noticed from the book was that the main reason I couldn't do the bunshin technique was that I was not trying to control my chakra while doing it. Too many people told me I was not trying hard enough, so I started pushing too much chakra at the technique for it not to collapse. I also knew little about how to actually control my chakra. Turns out that was something I was consistently thrown out of class back when I was going to the academy. 'Bastards'

As my apartment was getting a bit cramped with the many scrolls that I've already copied, and I'm not even a quarter done with just the genin section, I had the idea that if there exists a abandoned and hidden place I could use as a hideout. It would probably be old. That meant that maybe history books could help, so I sent a few clones into the actual library in Konoha. Turns out that I'd need a membership to borrow books, but I could freely read there without hassle. So started my studies of non shinobi knowledge.

Seeing how I was practicing with direct chakra manipulation with the body strengthening technique, and handseals through experimenting with that book,I decided that now was as good a time as any to start learning fuinjutsu. 'I mean specialization is for those peasants that only have 24 hours per day.' The books I copied showed, step by step, the exact method for creating storage seals for items and did the same for a few others like trap activating, or binding a prisoners chakra. Nowhere in these books and scrolls was the part that explained why the seals worked, or what part of the seal did what.

When I asked the stab happy librarian/archivist, the answer I got 'filtering some insults and opinions out' was that the theory for sealing was so complex, that only the greatest of geniuses could understand it. Also something about Konoha hiding it's knowledge of sealing from potential spies and leaks from captured ninja. Therefore someone decided to place it in the jounin part of the archives. Luckily, there were basic instruction on how to use the common seals. This included:

\- the activation methods for explosive tags that include: were trap tags, delayed explosion tags 'within a few seconds after getting chakra', explosive tags of various intensity,...

\- the methods for using and limitations of sealing scrolls (item containment seals) including telling the difference between scrolls of different quality and possible smaller versions for use outside the usual scrolls.

\- the use of basic activation and deactivation seals for bigger and more complex seals like silencing seals, eavesdropping seals, prisoner's chakra draining seals, barrier seals, etc.

Though learning all of this was useful, it was not what I wanted. The limitations on what I could learn from were beginning to annoy me. The many warnings from the sealing books and scrolls were enough to drive the point home that I could not hide the fact that I was experimenting with them 'safety is for those peasants that have only one body'. Even if I used clones that left the village, the explosions that often happen with these things would draw attention I do not want to deal with. Apparently it was easy to blow stuff up with seals, but it was somewhat difficult making stable, predictable explosives with the stuff.

Just when I decided that I needed to find a way to break into the archives, we got the message that it will take Kakashi a while to get back from his mission, and that we will be expected to start taking D-rank missions on our own, but still as a team.

* * *

Working with Sasuke and Sakura was as unpleasant as expected. Both of them were convinced that D-rank missions were a waste of time, so we only took the shortest ones like grocery shopping. Even after telling them I needed more money all I got were lectures from them. Sakura backing Sasuke's ambitions as usual. The old man Hokage was no more help either. According to him we needed the whoe team for missions and we were already doing the minimum requirement. Genin teams were not trusted enough to do anything solo.

I decided to look over my copied archives to see weather there was something useful for infiltration or maybe spying in general. It turned out that the clones barely touched upon the spying and infiltration section of the library. I can vaguely remember one of them deciding that someone going through that entire section in a short time could easily seem suspicious. Good call clone. A little brainstorming 'got the word from the civilian library' with my clones later, we had a plan. We still had to work out the details, but the basic idea is that a clone would use the henge'd form of a genin that got on my nerves the other day. With his looks he would go through memorizing that entire section.

Yakushi Kabuto is a genin that focuses on healing. I had met the bastard reading something from the healing section of the archives, and his arrogant and dismissive attitude toward me got on my nerves. He was obviously very nervous and respectful 'almost ass-kissing' toward the archivist and any other person with a higher rank that my clones saw him with. Being questioned about his sudden interest in spying would definitely scare the crap out of him. 'He he he, stupid Kabuto'

I had my clones follow him for a while to see when he does not have an alibi. After all, if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it right! Someone noticing my clone copying efforts would suck.

In the following two weeks team 7 did a number of D rank missions. Sasuke was slowly improving, Sakura barely changed 'she complained less about the missions' and Naruto had his attention split in so many different directions that he was enduring constant headaches. Also the side of him that loved pranking was becoming more obvious again. It calmed some nerves in people like the Hokage and Iruka to see some of the old Naruto in the current one.

His clones still could not find a decent hideout, but this was balanced by the new-found ability to make storage scrolls. Apart from one small explosion when he tried to put a storage scroll in a storage scroll 'who knew the damn things were so sensitive? It certainly wasn't in the warnings' his apartment looked livable in again. Learning to make fuinjutsu scrolls and tags was costing him a little too much because he failed ten times per every success. When he started it was even worse.

Their time as a leaderless team 'no matter what Sasuke said' was brought to an end by the Hokage's order. They got the mission to assist a group of five chunin in robbing a caravan that is going from the new Oto (hidden sound) village to Iwa (hidden rock village). The caravan is expected to have some illegal items, and could give insight into the new village.

**An: I know I messed up with the viewpoints. I'll try to avoid that in the future.**


	3. Welcome to the jungle

**AN: Perfect Lionheart had some great ideas in "Chunin exam day" that I will be using. If I use someone else's idea that I forgot to mention, please just message me about it and I'll add their names as contributors or something.**

"My name is Yurou Tanaka. I am a counter-fitting specialist." said Yurou, the twenty something chunin that had a goatee, a standard uniform for chunin and a bandana with the Konoha headband. Actually all of them had the standard uniform except one guy completely in black with a Kakashi like face-mask. Just a black one. He introduced himself next.

"I am Michi. I will deal with the infiltration parts of this mission."

Michi was brown haired and brown eyed mid height and mid width. Seemed perfect for infiltration to Naruto. He was also the oldest guy in the bunch, looking like he was in his early thirties.

Another two introduced themselves as Daichi and Hiiro Kazinski (AN:tribute to mother of learning, it's awesome). they were the weapons and jutsu specialists mainly in case there is a need for combat. They were siblings. Daichi was visibly older, stockier and had a diagonal jagged scar over his nose and the edge of his lips. Hiiro was taller by a bit and had shorter black hair. He was carrying a chain and sickle for his main weapon.

The last of the chunin was an Inazuka tracker that turned out to be Kiba's sister, Hana. She said that while her dogs were not here at the moment, they will be around for the mission.

Their mission was classified as a C rank because they were robbing simple chakraless thugs. As a precaution because they were operating without possible backup from Konoha, they had the extra genin for bolsting their numbers. Yurou was in charge, and his plan was as follows. Hana and her dogs would be at the point of their group untill they got close enough to their target, after which she would be around looking for any couter-ambushes against them. So basically usual scout duties.

Michi would then use the dead of night to steal whatever packages they were carrying, and look for anything unusual like documents and scrolls related to shinobi matters. Apparently to become a infiltration specialist you need skills like genjutsu to hide your thefts, or poisons to knock out whoever you were stealing from. They would then analyze the packages, and if there were any scrolls that were problematic to Konoha in the caravan, Yurou would deal with them.

Yurou himself was part of Konoha's intelligence department. With that comes detailed knowledge on espionage and counter-espionage methods. His job would be to quickly copy any relevant documents if they are not dangerous, and if they are, to make counter-fits that would be less damaging in the wrong hands and take the original home.

Daichi and Hiiro were on guard duty and the main muscle on the mission. As for the genin, their jobs would decided now.

"So" Yurou said "tell me what your skills are and we will decide your positions for the mission."

"I'm a fighter" said Sasuke "I have the best taijutsu of all the genin in our generation, and I can use wires well. I know the basic academy jutsu and the fireball, grand fireball and phoenix immortal fire technique"

While Sakura was almost drooling Hiiro asked: "Remind me what the last one does, will you?"

"Hn, it makes around a dozen head sized fire balls that sprey over an area."

"All right" Hiiro said "Then you're with me and Daichi."

"Next, the kunoichi" said Yurou

"Hi, I'm Haruno Sakura" she introduced herself and bowed politely "I'm not much of a fighter, but I did pass my academy exam with top grades. I can do the academy jutsu."

"All right ...uh... I suppose you're with me then." Yurou replied with a obvious lack of enthusiasm. "And finally you"

"I'm Naruto, I can do the kawarimi, the henge, the shadow clone, the camping jutsu to purify water, light stuff on fire and get rid of waste. I can also make basic storage seals. My taijutsu needs work, as does my bukijutsu. Still better than Sakura's though."

"HEY!" she reflexively yelled at him and would have hit him if they were alone. She was a bit shocked that he knew all those techniques when he was recently completely useless in her mind. Then after getting over her embarrassment at his slight dig at her fighting skills (she knew they weren't the best, but still) she remembered the reason for delaying their team duties at the start. Maybe this new Naruto would be more impressive than the last. Not that that would be difficult. He already stopped getting on her nerves. Now if he could just get new clothes, she felt she could really learn to get along with the new him.

"Those camping jutsu will be welcome on the long trip." said Yurou "Do you have any preference on what you would want to do? We will be showing you kids a few tricks in the next two days before the mission."

Sasuke smirked at that. Naruto couldn't recall ever seeing him quite so satisfied without humiliating someone. Anyway, his current goal was breaching the higher levels of the archives. That meant the skills of three of the chunin here would be useful to him. Scouting is absolutely necessary for making any sorts of plans. Unfortunately Hana's scouting is based on her clan techniques and ninken (ninja dogs). She's out. Counter-fitting can not help him in any immediate way, and if he slipped up and showed his intentions in front of a intelligence and counter espionage ninja... well Yurou's out too. He grinned wide.

"I've always been good at hiding from ninja after a prank. I'll go with Michi." After all, no one here seemed to have a personal grudge against him. These people were of the more numerous part of Konoha's people that were mostly indifferent towards him. A lot of them still wanted nothing to with him and sometimes even reacted violently to him. Examples of this include the occasional shop owner that threw him out and those that charged him extra. Though to be honest, a number of the things they charged extra for could be used for pranks. That might have motivated some of them. Maybe.

"Sure kid, just don't expect me to go easy on you because of that." Michi said.

Yurou clapped his hands and said "That's that then. Meet up at 8:15 Am at the main gate in two days. In the meantime, Sakura follow me."

"You're with us Uchiha" said Daichi and they ran towards the training grounds.

Michi was writing on a piece of paper he got from somewhere. "Ok Uzumaki, this" he said handing him the paper "is your infiltration test mission series. I need to see how good you are before I can help you with anything. I will be following you for observation, but without helping or hindering you."

Naruto nodded and read the paper. There were three tests. The first was to infiltrate the academy without being seen, and find out who has the most average grades of all 9-year olds, the second one was to walk through the market without using chakra or being spotted (and being who he was that was not simple) and the last was to get into the chunin watchtower on the Hokage mountain and flair his chakra before getting out. Without getting caught.

Due to his "Mizuki experience" Naruto insisted to report this to the Hokage first, and Michi agreed.

* * *

The first test was the easiest. Naruto knew the academy well enough that he could walk inside it blindfolded. There were also constant children and instructors using chakra around, so no one who could sense chakra would pay attention to it. Transforming into a ANBU agent he scouted around a bit before seeing Iruka in class. Then he made a clone and transformed himself into Iruka dragging a disobedient and whining Konohamaru (clone) into the teachers lounge (that held all the records he would need).

Konohamaru was easy enough to imitate in such a way that annoyed the two clerks enough to go on a smoke break. Once they were gone, another pair of clones popped up dressed as clerks and started searching through the records for all the current 9 year old's. Helped by the memorization technique they were done in a minute and dispelled. Naruto as Iruka left through the window chasing after his clone who was impersonating a fleeing Konohamaru.

"One down, two to go."

For the next challenge, being unseen without using chakra meant a disguise. Anything else would most likely fail. Konoha's main market was so densely filled with people that you almost had to shove your way through. It also took almost ten minutes to get from one end to another walking at a normal pace. Naruto was less familiar with the market having avoided crowds most of his life. Even as a mentally handicapped person he was instinctively wary of being surrounded.

Explosions would have been a great distraction to help him, but they were too destructive, any other distraction he could think of used chakra. Well, maybe the explosions did too. Using a simple cloak, on the other hand, would not be enough to make sure he was hidden. Ninjas that frequented the place were authorized and encouraged to ask for his identification if he were so blatantly hidden. He'd seen it happen. Hair paint and makeup with different clothes might work, but he had none of that. That left him with only one idea, and because of that only one option. He was working with a time limit after all.

A warehouse that was nearby gave him that one idea. They had worker clothes, and he saw a nearby warehouse being used to deliver food by a worker pushing a full wheelbarrow of fruit to the stands. So Naruto got himself some worker clothes that were only a little baggy and a bandana to cover his obvious hair. Then he acquired an unused wheelbarrow and filled it with empty crates. Finishing it off with some soot and dirt rubbed on his cheeks to hide his whiskers, he was finally ready.

The disguise worked like a charm. He was only cursed at for being in the way or shoving people and maybe tripping this one guy. When he was done, a clone returned the borrowed equipment through a roundabout route.

Two down, one left.

The last one was the most difficult. He never before noticed there was a watchtower there. The damn thing was carved into the mountain with no way save for sticking to a surface to get to it. If he wasn't told (well, written down really) that the slits in the cliff face were windows he would have not noticed it at all. There were also obvious seals in use there. After spying on them with borrowed binoculars 'I really need more equipment', he noticed that the chunin used some sort of paper on the seal around the entrance.

It is possible that an earth jutsu could open another way into the watchtower, or that with the help of some genjutsu that hides the user, he could get in. Here and now, however, he had no ideas on how he could get in. Explosive tags could break a way in, but that would make him obvious and very detectable. Disguises wouldn't work since he knew nothing of their codes or any questions they might ask. Stealing one of those papers that help them get in wouldn't help either because of the guard at the entrance.

Naruto stewed over the problem, looked for a solution long into the night. He raged around the nearby forest from which he was watching the watchtower. His frustrations eventually got to him and he started punching a nearby tree. Yelling and cursing would have been more of a release, but he had until tomorrow morning, and being spotted now would have sucked. They didn't spot him, they heard him.

Luckily for him, a clone on guard duty that got close under a henge of a practicing chunin heard them and quickly dispelled so that he wasn't caught unaware. It was really ridiculous that they heard him. He was almost five miles away from the place.

Naruto quickly henged into Rock Lee and started yelling.

"YOSH 'mutherfuckers', LET US BURN 'your damn watchtower-that-isn't-even-a-tower down' OUR FLAMES OF YOUTH!" Naruto started desperately started training and making a scene of himself. It was really embarrassing. That Lee kid did some pretty bizzare things, so he shouldn't be suspicious at least.

If they could hear him over here, it was a surprise they hadn't noticed him so far. Looks like coming here from inside Konoha masked his trip. They could however be ambushed there easily. Seeing how he could sneak up on them meant others could too and with only one way out they would be sitting ducks. 'Wait a minute! There's no way jiji would just leave them helpless like that. That must mean that there's another way to get in. But they all came from the outside... Probably to make it seem like there's only one entrance/exit.'

Now he was grinning. Since he got heard, he would have to do his Lee imitation for a while longer. That kid is nothing if not persistent. He could also use this to his benefit by making a racket here and sending clones to find the other way in. They wouldn't have to get out after the chakra flare.

Naruto started yelling about laps and started off running 'might as well get my physical training for the day done' into a blind spot for the watchtower. He couldn't make too many clones at once in case of chakra senors, but that could be fixed with more laps. A bunch of clones at once would also be more easily noticed.

So while he was in a spandex henge making a mockery of himself and getting exhausted, his clones entered the civilian shelters from the other side of the mountain. This was one of the first places he found that he thought to make into his hideout. Alas it wasn't meant to be. It took the clones a good hour to find the entrance and Naruto was panting and with a sore throat from all the yelling at the top of his lungs by then.

One clone managed to slip by a group of chunin that were betting on weather Lee (Naruto) would be heard inside Konoha or not. They were all looking out the window slits at Lee (Naruto). By the time one of them suggested they take beats on weather he would be sued by some civilians for disturbing the peace, the clone was in place and let loose enough chakra to dispel himself. The other two clones that managed to sneak in noticed the sudden panic in the watchtower. Seeing that they would soon be found they dispelled too.

Naruto yelled a final "YOSH!", coughed a bit of blood and ran home. He understood that working out would make a ninja much more effective and likely to survive, but what reason they had to yell so much eluded him. Content in the knowledge that he was done, he decided he didn't care after a while.

In front of his apartment stood Michi. Much in the same way Kakashi waited for him just recently. The bastard was smirking at him. Naruto almost growled, but his throat hurt too much so he used a handsign for "what?".

"HAHAHaha..." the bastard roared with laughter "Hurt your throat, did you? Never mind, we will be communicating mostly by handsigns to get you used to them. You did good kid. I thought that the second one might be problematic for you, and that the third would be too much. You proved me wrong. Still, there are things you could have done better. We will be working on them tomorrow, but your biggest mistake was that you made no contingency plans."

Naruto scrunched his face at that. He did go in with the first idea he had with all three tasks.

"I'll come pick you up tomorrow morning around 7, so that gives you about six hours of sleep. Take a shower too. Infiltration specialists should never smell strongly."

Naruto handsigned a swear.

"You know, I've heard rumors that a generation ago the handsigns were only made for mission relevant communication. Makes you wonder who added all the curse words. Ah well. Later kid." Michi said and shunshined away.

* * *

The next day Michi gave Naruto a odorless shampoo bottle and started instructing him on a chakra exercise.

"From what you've shown me, your chakra control is not precise enough for me to show you my genjutsu. However, I can show you mud walking. It's an exercise that seems like water walking but it isn't"

Naruto had to ask for clarification on what more than half the handsigns Michi was using were, so he got a part signed part vocal explanation. His throat was fine by now. Then he said he never did the water walking exercise. Michi was not particularly thrilled about that, but explained the basics anyway.

"Water walking uses the surface tension of water. You simply spread out chakra from your feet in solid circles that you stand on. It's kind of like having sandals with ridiculously large soles. Usually useless, but it allows you to float. On still waters it works easily, but the more broken up the surface the harder it gets. Apparently it's because a broken up surface has poor surface tension or something. Not too sure about that, but anyway, it is said that mist nin can even walk through a stormy sea. Personally I don't see how that can be done with the same technique as you need to adjust the chakra soles of your feet towards unbroken water surface or it will fail."

Michi walked through the mud that was next to them without leaving a single trace.

"Now the mud walking that I am doing now is different. Here the goal is not to float, but not to leave traces. So for that if I used water walking, this would happen."

He walked back through it and circles with the width of an arm appeared around wherever he stepped. They crisscrossed into a pattern similar to a chain of circles.

"As you can see, while not a lot of the mud actually sinks, the tracks are obvious. Now I'll explain what you need to do. Most times with mud, the surface is the most dry part and can easily take whatever shape is pressed into it and it stays that way. Underneath that surface you can use chakra to reach either solid ground or a more liquid muddy layer. The goal is to send chakra through the surface mud until it reaches either, and solidify the chakra away from you. If you reach solid earth you can solidify it into whatever shape and make yourself stand. Of course you will have to be pushing the chakra away so that you don't just sink anyway. If you reach a more liquid part, use the water walking technique there. It will not make any obvious change on top of the mud you are walking on. Well that is only if you don't stand in one spot for a while. If you do that then you will make a dent, but it will at least appear more natural. Your first challenge will be to send your chakra through the mud without spraying it everywhere."

Seeing that Naruto was getting a little cross-eyed he continued

"As you can see this exercise is a level higher than standard water walking. On the bright side, if you manage to get it right, you will increase control over your chakra somewhat. Hop to it kiddo. Also it is a better alternative to the earth jutsus that are meant to hide tracks, as you take less time and use less chakra so any chakra sensors will have a harder time finding you."

After failing almost instantly Naruto saw that he got his sandals muddy, so he created a clone to go and clean them and continued barefoot. He also used the fact that Michi was not paying attention (laid down to take a nap) and switched places with the clone.

As the clone got to work, the real Naruto walked toward his apartment. He really cleaned his sandals and then made almost 100 clones. That was tiring even for him. He then went back to Michi and left the clone army to practice water walking. After another seamless switch with Michi none the wiser (still napping), he started working on the exercise again. Only this time barefoot and periodically getting memories of water walking and mud walking clones. By lunch time, he got the basics of water walking (didn't sink, just kept wobbling on the water) and was making good progress on sending his chakra through the mud without any visible signs. Apart from the fact that he was still sinking of course. When he started pushing chakra through the mud to push himself up, the result was a mud spray from under his feet.

Seeing this much progress Michi was impressed. That made him motivate Naruto on to try and do it as fast as possible by urging him on with the example of a escaping scenario. "Imagine yourself running away carrying a beautiful princess without leaving tracks for the Iwa nins to get to you." He then went and got lunch, and Naruto made another hundred clones to replace the by now mostly dispelled ones.

"Alright kid, you're making great progress." Michi said after lunch "Now though, relax a bit and we'll talk about your tests."

"Ok" Naruto said

"Right, the first one was the easiest because you knew a great deal about the academy, and the other two were progressively harder in no small part because of this. Your approach however was a bit lax. The scouting before going in was great, but as you've seen Iruka inside the school you shouldn't have used him as a henge. Do you know why?"

"Uh, cause someone could have run into both of us?"

"That and someone could have asked you questions you do not have answers to. For instance if someone asked who is looking after the class Iruka was teaching. Or if they asked anything schedule related or about people you don't know about. If you are planning on impersonating someone, you must have a backstory. Knowledge on what he/she thinks about certain subjects or people, what he/she would do in this or that situation. It is far from simple. Especially with real people."

"Well, what should I have done?"

"There is no certain answer for that Uzumaki, however it would have been child's play to get to the documents if you activated the fire alarm and moved fast."

Naruto smacked himself in the head. "Dammit I did that a few times as a kid."

Michi nodded and continued "Right, onto the next one. You were too nervous there. You bumped into people when you could have waited, and even then didn't so much as apologize bringing unnecessary attention to yourself. Then there was the soot makeup. No one has only their cheeks filthy, you should have spread it a bit more evenly to make it appear more natural. It helps if you know how the job you're supposedly working on actually works. Once you do, you can make up a story of how you got the soot there in the first place."

"Got it"Naruto said 'I was sure I did that one good'

"Also the equipment you borrowed could have been missed. People could have noticed a thief. Next time borrow from somewhere farther away than where you will be."

Naruto was obviously cringing at his performance. Michi noticed this and immediately corrected him from getting any misunderstandings.

"Hey, don't get me wrong kid, you did good. Great even. It's just that you're still a kid and you can get better. I'm just pointing out where."

Naruto gave the man a small smile "Thanks Michi-san, I got it. No more moping"

"Hah, that's the spirit. Now onto the third. The obvious problem here is your loss of temper. Things will go poorly plenty of times. You still need to keep a cool head though. Your creative response was pure gold though. I laughed my ass off at that one" Michi said with obvious mirth "You then managed to figure out the alternate entrance and get the job done while distracting them. That was perfectly done. Though you might want to keep in mind the classic option of knocking out and tying up the next shift guy and masquerading as him. Like I said before though, this is not simple and they would have most likely caught you if you did." He then became completely serious before finishing "Sometimes though there is no alternative and you must take that leap of faith and hold on to your dear life."

They got water walking almost perfected that day and the next day Michi showed Naruto a camouflage kit for sale in one of the shinobi stores and how to use it. It was mostly useful in the wild. Naruto had a clone buy it. Michi also taught Naruto the basics of a jutsu called sound killer. Useful for sneaking and assassination. It was wind based, and muted all sound in a half a meter radius around the user. The downside of the jutsu was that it stopped all sound from outside as well making the user temporarily deaf to the outside. Naruto only had a basic grasp of the jutsu by the third day. It was also the day they started their mission. He also managed to get the mud walking exercise to the point where he didn't sink in shallow mud. That meant that he mastered pushing himself away with chakra against solid surfaces. It still left traces though, and he was still sinking in deeper mud.

* * *

"All right everyone." Yurou said once everyone assembled "We got the information from our spy network that they will be starting their journey in four days, so we have until then to get in position and find them. We will be intercepting them in waterfall country. Seeing as they were not shinobi, they have gotten a free pass through Iron country, and I don't need to explain why we will avoid them."

'I guess I should leave a clone behind to look up Iron country' thought Naruto.

"Our formation is going to be Hana, her ninken, Michi and Naruto in front followed by me and Sakura and in the rear Daichi, Hiiro and Sasuke. Everyone got that?" receiving nods from everyone he continued. "I hope you all have all your travel gear because we are not stopping in any populated place before making it back here." He then looked back at Sakura and narrowed his eyes "You will remember what I've told you about your behaviour unless you want to be a genin for another decade. Understood?"

Sakura gave him a shaky nod and looked a little pale. 'Wonder what happened there?'

The trip was mostly uneventful. They camped in forests and a cave, never in the open, and even Sasuke had to admit the usefulness of camping jutsu. Naruto told him about the book i got them from, and about the archives in general. Sakura seemed interested too. That was the first time Sasuke gave either of them a response other than "Hn" when he wasn't required to talk to them. He thanked Naruto and left both him and Sakura stunned for a few moments while he wrote down the books name.

Waterfall country was a great deal more wild than Fire country. Instead of the fire countries forests they were used to, here the team was surrounded by dense jungle with the occasional river crisscrossing through it. By avoiding the main roads they kept their presence hidden, but also started moving much slower. Sakura looked particularly displeased with the many bugs thriving in the jungle. Some of them could pop a shadow clone if he got near their nests. Michi and Hana were telling Naruto to keep his eyes open for traps and possible ambushes that they could walk into as part of their vanguard job. Daichi and Hiiro were at the same time telling Sasuke to leave the local wildlife alone, seeing as Sasuke wanted to try fighting a panther. Seeing as this was a stealth mission, that might be problematic.

On the last day camping before the Oto caravan came into sight, Michi took Naruto for a walk and showed him the various food they could forage around the rainforest. There were a few interesting poisons he showed him as well. Most of them were from plants, and one was almost the same as a very edible plant, but caused great, sometimes debilitating abdominal pains if eaten. Neither could find any of the venomous animals Michi had read about, but that was not necessarily bad. The two walked into camp with the food they foraged only to find Hiiro and Sasuke that caught some fish and a strange animal Naruto couldn't identify. Tasted like chicken though.

Early the next morning they took off to the border with Iron country to start their mission. Going close to the roads for the first time allowed the genin to see some civilian villages in Waterfall country. It provided a little distraction before the team made it to the edge of the jungle, and saw the target caravan.

The caravan had four wagons and about a dozen horsemen with their horses. No shinobi escort meant that their information was correct. Only Sasuke was disappointed about this. 'Lunatic' thought Naruto. They would follow them until nightfall when Michi should have an easier time getting by their sentries and checking the insides of the wagons. He would also be bringing a Naruto clone to warn him of anything the other clones that have the job of surveillance might spot. Nothing interesting happened until nightfall and the team kept their distance.

"At their current speed they will reach the first city down this road in two days. We will finish our mission before that" said Yurou "Naruto, Michi whenever you're ready. We've got your backs."

Naruto made his two dozen clones approach the camp from various directions. Because they were using the soundkill jutsu,however flawed, to approach and were transformed into various nondescript shapes that melded into the jungle, they got into position unseen. Michi used a genjutsu that made him and a clone he was holding go completely invisible. He got to one of the wagons and used another genjutsu on the two guards inside to make them fall asleep before starting to ransack their cargo. The clone kept guard. It was smooth going for three hours before on of the caravan people got up and started complaining about missing his shift because they never woke him up.

Two Naruto's dispelled and got the message in time for Michi to cancel his sleep genjutsu and restart the invisibility one. The guards argued and grumbled but it didn't make a difference to Michi. He dispelled the Naruto clone quietly a little distance from the guards and got back to the team.

"I'm going to be able to work better if I know their schedule."

"Sure, we'll get it, but did you see anything important in there?" Yorou asked

Michi shook his head and said "Just rice and sake. Nothing yet."

The network of Naruto clones enabled Yorou to figure out their guard schedule without nearing the camp. They then informed Michi via handsigns. By the time morning came about Michi was asleep having gone through three of the wagons without finding anything important. The next night went much the same until Hiiro asked if they checked underneath the wagons. That's where they found a locked box stuck to the underside of a wagon.

The documents were in the locked box, and Yorou was skilled enough to open it without leaving any traces of tampering on it. Sakura watched him work attentively until the documents got out. Then he had her help. Both of them took out a scroll with some fuuinjutsu written on the beginning part. They also got some ink out and started placing the papers on the seal part of the scroll. When activated, the seal drained the ink they got out and filled itself with copies of the documents.

Yorou proceeded to scan the documents they copied for anything problematic to Konoha, and upon finding nothing put them back in place in the lock box. Michi returned it and the team distanced themselves from the caravan.

"All right team, well done. The mission is complete and we are going back after getting some sleep." Yorou said.

It was then that Hana jumped into the clearing they were talking in with her Ninken.

"Tanaka-san, we're not alone!"

**AN2: THE WORST PART of the chapter was naming the OC-s. Can reviewers please give me a few appropriate Japanese names for future characters?**


	4. First skirmish and socialising

"We have to get out of here, There are at least ten of them." Hana nearly yelled while panting at the same time.

"Where are they coming from? How much time do we have?" asked Yorou.

"From directly behind me, they will be here in minutes."

"Shit. We can't be seen by the caravan. That means we will have to go through them. Daichi, take point, Hiiro you're right behind him. You two have to make an opening for us. If you can, go for the kill. Everyone else stick together until we run into the enemy. Me and Hana with her ninken will split to the right, leaving the rest of you to the left. If there are a few enemy we can quickly handle then we flank them, otherwise we run for survival. Michi, take care of them. Naruto, have a few clones get rid of our camp here. Now let's go home. Double time everyone."

"Hiiro and Daichi jumped into the woods quickly followed by everyone else. They took off at a angle that took them closer to Iron country, as Iwa was likely to have patrols hostile to Konoha. In less than a minute the group of 6 plus three dogs ran into fighting. Daichi was using a tanto to attack a hostile shinobi, while Hirro held back another two with his chain and sickle and some kunai with explosive tags.

""Eveyone pass them by and attack along the way!" Yorou ordered and jumped to the right with Hana."

Naruto made ten clones and followed his team to the left, Sasuke used the Housenka jutsu to attack the two shinobi attacking Hiiro, Sakura and Michi threw a few kunai and shuriken at the enemy. On the other side, Hana with her ninken distracted Daichi's enemy long enough for Yorou to shoot a water jutsu through him, killing the man.

Hiiro and Daichi were again left alone (with Naruto's clones) but they quickly finished off the injured single enemy shinobi.

"Listen kid" Hiiro said "How many clones like these can you make?"

"Around a hundread before I start getting tired."

Hiiro whistled "That's great. Do that then, and have them split up leaving false tracks everywhere. Daichi and I can find our own way to Konoha easily enough, alright?"

"Got it" the clone said and popped

The original Naruto quickly said what he was told to do to everyone there and no one argued, so he let loose a small army in practically every direction except iron country.

From what his clone that he left behind to read up on them remembered, the samurai from there were extremely vengeful, contacted everyone before acting, used chakra, had little care for their self preservation and despised intruders. If he got in there, he would likely make an enemy of an entire country. While those samurai were capable, relatively smart and strong, the real reason everyone left them alone is that they didn't quit. Ever. There were several Kage level shinobi that got overrun and killed for pissing off the samurai. Usully around a thousand samurai died in thee process, but they were disturbingly ok with that. Since samurai specialize in a single area of combat, they are much easier to train. Another thing they have going for them is their training to counter common shinobi techniques. Even though the greater shinobi countries could defeat them and take them over, no one bothered since it would just draw their own enemies into the mess. Those who sided with the samurai were later rewarded with great quality tools and weapons. The country was not called Iron for nothing after all.

Soon enough some of his clones ran into the enemy. Some ran, and some fought all together. The fighting clones mostly lost, but they were cheap anyway. Another benefit was that he now knew how the enemy fought. There was one kid he managed to kill, but the others used weird variations of sound based weapons. One of them even gloated about his gauntlet and how it attacked the inner ear. But the most memorable one was a guy that used his bones as spikes and spears. As soon as he told his team about him, Yorou interrupted him.

"Shit!" he said and slammed his fist into a tree trunk "That sounds like a kaguya. They were supposed to be extinct! Bloodthirsty bastards. Where is he?"

"He and his team are using the most direct route towards Konoha." answered Naruto

"Then that's where we're not going."

"What's so special about a guy using bones?" interrupted Sasuke.

"Most direct physical forms of combat tend to be useless against them." Yorou said "I know you can use some fire jutsu, and you're not the only one, but he would be too much of a risk. We would gain nothing by it. Naruto, can you draw where you found the enemy so far?"

"Yeah" said Naruto and got to work drawing all the enemy groups and their direction of movement.

"All right Naruto! We can use this." said Hana "can you use your clones to draw them away from this roundabout route?"

"Sure" said Naruto as he made and dispelled a clone to pass on the message "They're on it."

They moved on towards the roundabout route uninterrupted after that. Naruto got the memories of losing all his clones that were fighting alongside Daichi and Hiiro. They fell to a fat guy that could absorb their chakra, and a foul mouthed read head with a flute.

They would never see either Kazinski brother again.

"In their retreat Yorou was giving orders about how they were getting back to Konoha until he was shot with a golden kunai through his foot.

"Spread out! Now! Now!" he yelled even as he fell to one foot and got up again only to have to jump aside to dodge a barrage of kunai.

"Shit there are too many of them" Hana yelled. The enemy had gotten reinforcements during the chase.

"Yorou made a split second decision and threw a scroll to Hana. "Don't let the enemy get that Hana. You're the fastest one here. Go!"

Hana knew this was a diversion even as she ran away pulling most of the enemy with her. Sakura was carrying the documents they copied from their mission. He was the diversion. Whatever scroll he gave her was most likely just a smokescreen. The kids would need all the help they could get. Yorou fought for a while with a few jutsu and explosive kunai but he was whittled down even with Naruto's clones greatly prolonging his life. Being immobile and surrounded by at least 15 enemy shinobi was too much for him. He activated his last remaining explosive tags so that the enemy would not capture him alive for interrogation.

One of Naruto's clones witnessed this. The genin were feeling the stress and fear of being hunted and their allies disappearing and dying. They were getting winded. Especially Sakura. Michi was forced to make a decision as the senior shinobi.

"We cannot outrun them, so we will hide." he ordered team 7 "Naruto, I will need one more group of us fleeing in the direction we were going to misdirect the enemy. Remember, only one, any more could arouse suspicion."

Michi and Naruto used their wilderness kits to hide themselves, Sakura and Sasuke in a nearby bog in the jungle, and not ten seconds after Michi used his jutsu soundkiller and scentkiller, the enemy passed them by. There were now at least 25 of them. The foursome spent a miserable night in the bog. During that time Naruto kept showing handsigns to them to tell them what the clones knew before popping. The bone guy returned and destroyed most of them, but one clone overheard that Hana escaped.

Eventually Michi decided that four in the morning was a great time to disappear, so a recharged Naruto made new clones scout to around without making any sounds (and clones do not smell), while everyone got the bog leaches off themselves. Naruto's clones found Yorou's remains partially eaten by scavengers as well as those of several enemy shinobi. Particularly the young ones. Apparently the older enemies did not die in the pursuit. Other than that the jungle was blissfully shinobi free. Following a roundabout route got them to a city, and then to the border. After that they got to Konoha in record time.

The whole team was stressed and worn out. Sakura was in shock, Sasuke was angry at himself for not being able to do more, and Naruto was tired and depressed about the three deaths. Michi kept a facade up the whole way back. When the gatekeepers saw them, Izumo immediately went to get a medic nin or few, and Kotetsu asked them about the mission.

It turned out that Hana never returned either, and a quick squad was formed to track her down. If Hana had come before them, they would be the ones greeted by the retrieval squad instead. After Sakura handed the scroll over to some chunin working at the mission office, they were all separated and rushed into the hospital. Naruto was diagnosed with exhaustion and malnourishment. The nurses told him to take it easy and that the rest of his team was going to be mission ready in a week's time without any long term issues. Finally even Hana was dragged in after a few days. She would get a new scar from the mission.

* * *

A single day out of the hospital and he was already bored out of his mind. For some reason just getting back into training didn't feel right. After making life and death decisions and fighting overwhelming odds, walking on mud seemed trivial and pointless. He knew it wasn't, it just felt that way. Even his clones were being lazy. What he needed now was another way to fight. Maybe a heavy hitter technique, or something. The archives did not offer that to him. Maybe to a chunin, or more likely to a jonin, but genin got intros. That's all.

He slowly started taijutsu practice again, and thankfully some clones were cooperative enough to be useful. Some went back to the archives dressed as several people, others trained in mudwalking, handsigns and chakra control.

The humming bird style was made for those that do not use taijutsu as their primary weapon. Mostly for genjutsu users and medics, but some long range jutsu users as well. It was in it's essence a hit and run style. Against Naruto's nature to do so, but useful with fragile clones. If he could find some way to make a good deal of damage stick, it would be devastating.

Luckily Kakashi came back. By the time he came around to see Naruto training, he had been briefed on their mission and visited the rest of team 7.

"Hello Naruto-kun, it's been a while, hasn't it?" he said with one of his patented eye smiles looking at the army of blondes.

Most of the clones dissappeared upon seeing Kakashi and the real one walked over sporting some new bruises.

"Heya Kakashi-sensei, how'd your mission go?"

"Maa, as well as could be expected, better than yours from what I hear."

That turned Naruto quickly serious.

"Maa, maa Naruto-kun, none of it was your fault, one could even say that the fact that there were survivors in the first place was thanks to you. The higher ups think there is a leak in Konoha's intelligence, and that is the reason why you were ambushed."

Naruto could only nod to that, and Kakashi continued.

"I'm proud of how the whole team acted, seeing as you are not ready for something of that caliber. Unfortunately, the shinobi lifestyle rarely waits for someone to be ready. Because of that, I've decided to speed up the team's training a bit. I could see what you have in your arsenal from your training, and I can only say that your taijutsu and bukijutsu need work. Now, now, no need to get upset, I already have ideas for fixing that if you could stand some eccentricity."

"Naruto squinted his eyes "Not sure if that's a word Kakashi sensei."

"Maybe, maybe not, either way, I have a few ideas for later. Now, I would like to show you a bit about chakra nature."

The man rummaged around his pouch for a while before drawing out a small blank paper.

"Try pushing your chakra into this would you?"

Naruto did, and it split in half.

"Wind, huh? Naruto, this paper is used to show a person's chakra nature or natures plural. It shows which techniques you will have a talent in. That does not mean that you cannot do other techniques, merely that it would require more work and chakra, and chakra control."

"So, what, if I want to do a water jutsu it'll never be as strong as that of someone with water chakra nature?"

"As you are now, and if you were both of similar power and skill, yes. However, chakra natures can be obtained with a great amount of effort. Most jounin have two or three. That is something they spent a great deal of their lives perfecting.

"You see Naruto, This is usually a chunin level exercise. But the way I see it, you have behaved like a true chunin on your last mission. Sasuke slightly less so, and Sakura still less. Though I'm sure that if they had any additional skills to help with they would have, they still let their emotions effect them a bit much. I've read the reports from Hana and Michi. You have also made great strides in your chakra control."

Naruto couldn't quite keep the satisfied smirk off his face after hearing that and Kakashi chuckled at him.

"Maa, back to the training now. Wind chakra is primarily used to cut or attack with blunt force. I know that the training for the cutting part of wind chakra is done by cutting leaves just with your chakra before moving on to bigger things. I'm afraid I don't know the training for blunt attacks with it, but I'm sure I could look it up soon enough. Seeing as I don't have wind natured chakra I've never done this training myself, but Asuma has. I'll be able to teach you a few jutsu, but..."

"Wait a second sensei" Naruto interrupted "Those guys that attacked us could use sound as a weapon, is that related to wind?"

"Sound huh? Possible, but I'm afraid I have no idea how to go about learning that. In any case, you'll soon have the chance to bug Asuma about it. For now, be sure to try it out so you have all the right questions for him."

"Hai sensei, but how would I go about getting new chakra natures?"

"Oh, that's simple." Kakashi eyesmiled "It's all explained in the chunin area of the archives." and he shunshined away before Naruto could anything else.

"Dammit!"

He dived right back into training, except now, there was a bunch of clones trying to cut leaves with just chakra.

"Michi found him later exhausted, lying down in the middle of a worn out training field. He grinned at the sight. "Hey, Naruto!" he yelled to wake him up. Honestly, if the kid couldn't wake up when someone showed up, he was taking his training too far. Situations like that just weren't safe in the ninja world

Naruto did manage to wake up soon with a good deal of grumbling and saw who it was.

"Michi-san, good to see you."

"You too kiddo. I came here to tell you that the funerals will be held together two days from now. Do you have any formal wear?"

"Uh, no not really."

"Well, best get some then, ... by the way, are you interested in continuing your stealth training? You have a real talent in it kid, and as you could see in the last mission it's very useful."

"Of course Michi-san. Should I look for you after the funerals?"/

"Nah, I'll find you. See you around kid."

"Bye."

"Orochimaru was reading the information about the chunnin exams location change. They were supposed to be held in Konaha and he was planning to use that to his advantage for a slight invasion, but that was apparently delayed for a year now. It seems Jiraya caught wind of what was going on, and now the exams would be held at a not yet built (supposedly neutral) location. That was scheduled for a year from now ruining his plans for the moment.

Apparently someone had intercepted some of his ninja and the intelligence they carried. The intelligence, while relatively harmless, had drawn a too intense response and still the infiltrators lived. This was all the opening Jiraya needed to make a mess of his own. He had lost a hideout and some valuable specimens to that. Someone would have to pay.

"The next exams were going to be held in Suna.

...

...

Maybe he could convince the Kazekage to take some of the clan heirs hostage and ransom them back to Konoha. They are hurting for money after all. For Sound however, apart from testing some experimental augmented shinobi, there would be no gain. He would not waste his own lab rats unless he was sure that he can hurt Konoha in the process. Getting new ones is difficult enough as it is.

Orochimaru started writing a coded letter.

* * *

The funerals came and went, Naruto didn't really know any of the fallen shinobi very well, so despite the somber atmosphere, he wasn't affected as badly as Sakura and Sasuke. Sasuke in particular was taking it poorly and medic nins had to take him away after the funeral so that he doesn't go training again before fully recovering. He seemed angry at their deaths and resigned at the same time. Sakura was just miserable and went back to her home to recover there before the week ends. Michi cried, and so did Hana. They now had a grudge against Oto(Sound) and whatever spy leaked the info.

Naruto continued his usual training the next day.

Michi and Kakashi came around to help him. Michi started teaching him about the seals used for safeguarding places or documents and was pleasantly surprised Naruto knew something about seals to begin with. The difference between normal sealing scrolls and these was in several factors. Normal sealing scrolls can be taken apart in such a way that when they fail the objects sealed inside are released regardless of how the scroll is locked these would destroy the contents, maybe blow up or respond in any other preset way in case of faliure.

Another difference is the release part. It can be made for a specific chakra nature, a precise amount of chakra, a series of pulses of chakra with pauses between, blood of a person, blood of a family/clan, ones that need a specific 'key' seal and naturally the various combinations of these. Then there were the responses for failed access. Michi only knew the self destruct one, but others included silent and loud alarms, reverse summoning, partial object release (which might fool someone into thinking they got everything, or release a poison cloud, explosives or whatever),...

All of a sudden Naruto had a lot of fuinjutsu to study and it put him in a chipper mood. It made the people who knew him like the ramen stand chefs nostalgic. It's been a while since he was last smiling so much.

Kakashi decided to pitch in and show Naruto how to make his own traps using explosive tags. He pointed out which part of the tag contained the trigger for the explosion, and how to connect it to a ninja string without tearing it up. When he learned about sensor arrays, he could start using those in combination too.

Kakashi also gave Naruto a few scrolls about wind chakra he dug up from the archives and taught him the basic Daitoppa (great breakthrough) technique, which was useful for speeding up or repelling projectiles and tripping over civilians. Naruto was pretty skeptical that the jutsu could be as powerful as Kakashi made it out to be. Supposedly it could tear through entire buildings with enough power. When Naruto tried to push more power in it, he just made it bigger. According to Kakashi his problem was control. As always.

It certainly made the clone practice wars more interesting though. One clone would blast another away, and while inside the jutsu the flying clone would cast it again, greatly increasing the destructive power. Also any clone that jumped was considered target practice and shot by at least a dozen blasts of wind. The training grounds were messier than ever those days. The clones never managed to ride two combined Daitoppa techniques since they would just pop. Naruto decided that testing that was a health hazard he didn't need at the moment.

For the following week or so his training was split on mastering wind and various stealth exercises with Michi. Those included moving through a crowd without getting his face seen by staying out of everyone's line of sight (neither of them was all that good with it but some people could do this), hiding weapons on his body that a superficial search would not find (as opposed to drawing seals on the body which could be detected by sensors), acting lessons (actual ones for actors, not taught by Michi), finding out the tells of a liar and eliminating them in himself, and special effort was placed on increased awareness. Naruto never got attacked in his sleep so much as then (the villagers didn't have to hide their hate), or while eating for that matter.

Kakashi occasionally visited, but said he was doing good, and that he didn't want to distract him too much, so he just read his porn nearby.

Once that week was over Sasuke and Sakura had fully recovered and team 7 restarted team training. The reason it took longer than necessary was that Sasuke was impatient and got injured again from training somehow. At least they weren't forced to do more than two D-ranks a week. Kakashi told them they were going to be splitting up and forming temporary teams with some other genin that his drinking buddies were teaching.

Naturally, the man never mentioned the why part, so Naruto decided to dig a little on his own. Naruto got Neji's place on team Guy, Sakura got Hinata's place on team Kurenai and Sasuke got Shikamaru's place with team Asuma. They would cycle through all the teams in a month.

Seeing as how Naruto didn't want to quit learning from Michi, his next week was exhausting. Guy and Lee put him through boot-camp from green leotard hell, and Tenten did her best to make him proficient with weapons. He would most likely not master weapon use any time soon, but he could take his time with it. His clones allowed him to learn a lot about various weapons and martial art katas. Guy agreed with his choice of taijutsu combined with the clones, but warned him not to rely on only one style as that would make him predictable. A dangerous thing to be. For himself, not his enemies. So he started learning a extremely short range brawler style all elbows and knees as well as a grappling style.

Michi meanwhile was having him relearn all his moves while being quiet and stealthy about them (that mostly meant sudden attacks or non telegraphed ones). At the end of the week everyone took a day to be with their original teams. Sasuke learned a new fire jutsu, Sakura started going into genjutsu and even learned three of them.

Kakashi had the team sit down and talk about what they learned so they could strategize better. Without having Sakura nag him, Sasuke was more relaxed around his teammates so he soon started venting.

"Freaking Jounin. Must they all be lazy? It must be something about their age. They can't have gotten as good as they are with out working on it in their youth."

Naruto suddenly jumped and yelled "FUCK!"

That startled both Sasuke and Sakura to jump in a defensive stance.

"What is it Naruto?" Sakura asked looking everywhere for an attack.

"Just don't talk about_ youth_ alright?" Kakashi started giggling at this and confused the two even more.

"The hell is wrong with you Dobe? I thought you stopped with these stupid pranks."

"I did. You'll see what's wrong with me when you meet Lee and Gai."

Sakura saw Naruto being tense about the subject and Sasuke getting irritated so she switched subjects to avoid getting into a fight. The whole flight from Sound ninja left an emotional scar on her.

How about we just say what new things we learned, and then brainstorm for what we can use them all for now. We can practice some situations later."

They both grunted and Sasuke started by saying he learned a Fire jutsu called Ash Pile Burning. He then demonstrated blowing an ash cloud in front of himself before clicking his teeth to ignite it to explode.

Naruto briefly described the terrible youth fanatics and had a couple of clones duke it out. Not very impressive because they have low durability.

Sakura showed them the genjutsu she learned. She had the one Kakashi used on her during their bell test, an area genjutsu that slightly changed the look of things around her and a genjutsu that made people loose their sense of direction. They could then be led into a trap.

Apart from the idea that the ash cloud could be under a genjutsu to look like something harmless, they made no tactical breakthrough.

For the next week, Naruto was with Shikamaru and Hinata under Asuma, Sasuke with Neji and Chouji under Kakashi and Sakura with Tenten and Ino under Guy. The whole of Konoha could hear the fangirl duo scream.

Under Asuma Naruto finished his leaf cutting exercise and moved on to cutting bigger things like rocks. He also started the blunt wind exercises that consisted of: blowing away leaves, blowing away specific leaves/putting out candle fires, compressing wind into a single wave (and later point) of effect instead of a stream, lengthening his punches and kicks with wind until he could punch rotten wood five meters in front of him with enough strength to damage it, followed by blowing away incoming kunai, shoving people around and finally staying dry under rain or a waterfall. Asuma explained his theory about the sound based attacks, so Naruto tried making his blunt wind waves come out in increasingly greater frequency. By the end of that week he could control his wind streams with mild accuracy. Natural wind still threw him off. Asuma also showed him how to add wind chakra to sharp objects like kunai and shuriken.

Apparently there was a whole science behind which metals to get for this as the common tools were interrupting the flow of chakra and diffusing it. Not to mention that forcing the techniques would damage the metal itself. Chakra metal on the other hand was almost perfect for using it with chakra enhancement, but without chakra it was far more brittle than normal metal. Only in the Land of Iron did they somehow create weapons with the best of both worlds. It was their most jealously guarded secret.

For some reason or another Hinata found his training fascinating, but never really wanted to talk. It took no small amount of patience to change her mid, as her confidence was almost non-existent. He learned that she had an interest in learning about medicine. Her clan got in the way of this because they wanted to preserve their image of being bastards for some reason.

At the end of the week Sakura and Sasuke were again not impressed by the gentle wind streams and extra sharp kunai that occasionally fall apart.

Sasuke again complained about their sensei's laziness but was satisfied with the sparring. Sakura was a walking bruise. She had also completely given up on her diet. Kakashi was having fun making her and Naruto twitch by saying youth every now and then.

By this point Naruto had managed to gather that they were being prepared for the chunin exams that were going to be held in Suna in a little under a month. This bit of news apparently did impress his teammates, as they (and the rest of their generation) had no idea about this.

"I've got a few clones gathering info, but everyone I know like Iruka and Michi is being tight lipped about this. They were ordered to keep quiet, but I'm betting the genin that competed in the past weren't. Now, we just need to find a way to motivate them to share."

"Pain is a great motivator" said Sasuke "Just ask the people at the T&amp;I"

"Um, we can't do that Sasuke-kun. They are fellow Konoha ninja. It would be illegal to harm them in any way."

He shrugged "Maybe we can get them drunk? Or bribe someone?"

"Bribing sounds like it would work for most non clan ninja." Naruto said "I'll have clones look for possible targets. You two keep and ear to the ground as well."

"Right."

"Sure."

The following week Naruto was with Kurenai, and he managed to fail at making genjutsu completely. He thought that, with the help of seals he could make genjutsu (so long as they molded chakra for him), but without them all his attempts were overloaded. He did manage to learn the basics of dispelling genjutsu, so the week was not a complete waste.

"According to Kurenai his chakra was too thick or solid for normal genjutsu so it does not react as genjutsu usually does, making learning genjutsu techniques a waste of time for him. After interrogating her a little (by sheer persistency) he managed to learn that medical ninjutsu uses thinned out chakra so that they do not cause accidental damage inside a person. It also makes getting chakra inside a person easier and uses less chakra in general.

Naruto's clones get the basic principles of how that worked from the genin level archives, learned the exercise and managed to thin his chakra to the point that he had finally succeeded in making a regular bunshin. He also got why Kurenai thought that medical chakra was not the answer. It made the chakra lean towards the Yang (physical) side and imbalanced most genjutsu. All in all it was a work in progress.

With that the joint training sessions were over for the time being and team seven was together again. Kakashi had them meet at training ground 7.

"Now, I want you three to tell me what you thing these past three weeks were about." Kakashi said. "Let's start with Sasuke."

"To get stronger and learn things from other specialists?"

"Is that a statement or a question Sasuke-kun?"

"Statement."

"Partially correct Sasuke-kun, now lets see what Sakura-san has to say."

"Um, we also trained with other teams, so we got better at adapting to different teams for the future."

"Also partially correct. Anything to add Naruto-kun?"

"Preparing us for the chunin exams."

"Yes, but again, not complete. What we wanted to show you was the workings of different teams. How they work from the inside, their strengths and their weaknesses. What strategies they can use, and finally where you would avoid them and where you would lure them.

Naturally the more you know about your opponents the more you can strategize, but even from a glance you can tell the odds of certain things like age, equipment, country of origin, bulkiness, condition of health at the moment and so on. By using your other senses you can get additional information. For example an Inazuka could smell if they carried poison, when Sasuke gets his sharingan he can roughly tell their chakra levels. The Hyuuga can as well. Sometimes you will be able to recognize what clan someone is from, and if you know the clan you can plan with that knowledge. That was really why you were taught so much history in the academy."

"In any case, I'm proud of you three for how far you've come. I'm sure you'll do great in the exams if you choose to enter. Seeing as they are in Suna, you will need to make your choice in the next three days if we are to get there on time. Here are the documents you will need to sign if you chose to go."

He handed them the official papers.

"One final reason why we had you train together is because in Suna you will have no backup, and Konoha ninja always stick together. No matter what."

With that he left.

"All right" Naruto said "Let's pool together what we know so far."


End file.
